Mokshadharma Parva — The greatness of Vishnu described

Ushana said I bow to that divine and illustrious and powerful Being who holds this Earth with the sky in his arms.

I shall speak to you of the pre-eminent greatness of that Vishnu whose head, O best of the Danavas, is that Infinite place.

While they were thus talking with each other there came to them the great sage Sanatkumara of pious soul for the purpose of removing their doubts.

Adored of the king of Asuras and the sage Ushanas, that foremost of sages sat down on a rich seat.

After the highly wise Kumara had been seated, Ushanas said to him,-Describe to this king of the Danavas the pre-eminent greatness of Vishnu.

Hearing these words, Sanatkumara said to the following, fraught with grave sense, upon the pre-cminent greatness of Vishnu to the intelligent king of the Danavas.

Listen, O Daitya, to everything regarding the greatness of Vishnu. Know, O destroyer of foes, that the entire universe depends on Vishnu.

O you of mighty arms, it is He who creates all creatures mobile and immobile. In course of Time it is He, again, who withdraws all things and in Time it is He who once more sends them from Himself.

Into Hari all things merge at the universal dissolution, and from Hiin all things again come forth. Men having scriptural learning cannot get him by such lore. Nor can He be acquired by Penances, nor by Sacrifices. The only means by which He can be acquired is by controlling the Senses.

Not that sacrifices are absolutely useless towards such an end. For a person, by relying upon both external and internal acts, and upon his own mind, can purify (them) by his own understanding. By such means, one can enjoy Infinity in the world.

As a goldsmith purifies the dross of his metal by repeatedly putting it into the fire with very great efforts of his own, similarly Individual Soul succeeds in purifying himself by his course through hundreds of births. Some one may be seen to purify himself in only one life by great efforts.

As one should with care remove stains from his body before they become thick, similarly one should with great efforts, wash off his sins.

By mixing only a few flowers with them, grains of sesame cannot be made to renounce their own smell. Similarly, one cannot, by purifying his heart only a little, succeed in seeing the Soul.

When, however, those grains are perfumed repeatedly with the help of a large quantity of flowers, it is then that they cast off their own smell and assume that off the flowers with which they are mixed.

Similarly, faults, in the form of attachments to all our environments, are removed by the understanding in course of many lives, with the help of a large quantity of the quality of goodness, and by means of efforts born of practice.

Listen, O Danava, by what means creatures attached to acts and those unattached to them get at the causes bringing on their respective states mind.

Listen to me with rapt attention. I shall in their due order, describe to you, O powerful Danava, as to how creatures follow action and how they give up action.

The Supreme Lord creates all creatures mobile and immobile. He is beginingless and endless. Unendued with attributes and endless. Unendued with attributes of any sort, he assumes attributes. He is the universal Destroyer, the Refuge of all things, the supreme Ordainer, and pure Intelligence.

In all creatures it is He who lives as the mutable and the immutable. It is He who, having eleven modifications for His essence, drinks this universe with His rays.

Know that the Earth is His feet. His head is formed by Heaven. His arms, O Daitya, are the several points of the horizon. The intermediate space is His ears.

The light of His eye is the Sun, and His mind is in the Moon. His Understanding lives always in Knowledge, and His tongue is in Water.

O best of Danavas, the Planets are in the midst of His brows. The stars and constellations originate, from the light of His eyes. The Earth is in His feet, O Danava.

Know also that the qualities of Rajas, Tamas, and Sattva are of Him. He is the fruit of all the modes of life, and He it is who should be known as the fruit of all religious acts.

The Highest and Immutable, He is also the fruit of abstention from all work. The Chcchandas are the hair on His body, and Pranava is His word.

The various orders (of men) and the modes of life are His refuge. His mouths are many. duty is put in his heart. He is Brahma, He is the highest Righteousness; He is existent and He is non-existent.

He is Shruti. He is the scriptures. He is Sacrificial vessels. He is the sixteen sacrificial priests. He is all the Sacrifices. He is the Grandfather (Brahman), He is Vishnu. He is the two Ashvins, and he is Purandara.

He is Mitra, He is Varuna, He is Yama, He is Kuvera—the lord of riches. Although the Ritwijas seem to see Him as separate, He is, however, known to them as one and the same. Know that this entire universe is under the control of One divine Being.

The Veda that is in the soul, O king of Daityas, regards the unity of various creates. When a living creature realizes this unity on account of true knowledge, he is then said to attain to Brahma.

The period of time during which one creation exists or owing which it ceases to exist is called a Kalpa. Living creatures exist for a thousand millions of such Kalpas, Immobile creatures also exists for an equal time. The period for which a particular creation exists is measured by many thousands of lakes, O Daitya!

Conceive a lake that is one Yojana in width, one Krosha is depth, and five hundred Yojanas in length. Imagine many thousands of such lakes.

Try then to dry up those lakes by taking from them, only once a day, as much water as may be taken up with the end of a single hair. The number of days that would be necessary to drying them up perfectly by this process forins the period that is required by the life of one creation from its beginning to the time of its destruction.

The highest Evidence says that creatures have six colours, viz., Dark, Tawny, Blue, Red, Yellow, and White. These colours produced by mixtures in various degrees of are three qualities of Rajas, Tamas, and Sattva. Where Tamas prevents Sattva falls below the mark, and Rajas remains the same, the result is the colour called Dark. When Tamas prevails as before, but the relations between Sattva sand Rajas, are changed the result is the color called Tawny. When Rajas prevents, Sattva goes down, and Tamas remains the same, the result is the colour called Blue. When Rajas prevents as before and the proportion change between Sativa and Tamas, the result is the intermediate colour called Red. That colour is more agreeable. When Sattva prevents Rajas falls down and Tamas keeps on the same, the result is the colour called Yellow. It yields happiness. When Sativa prevails and the proportion is changed between Rajas and Tamas, the result is the colour called White. It yields great happiness.

The White is the foremost colour, It is sinless on account of its being free from attachment and aversion. It is without grief, and free from the exertion necessary by desire for action. Hence, White, O king of Danavas, brings on Liberation. O Daitya, having undergone thousands of births derived through the womb, Individual Soul attains to success.

That success is the same end which the divine Indra declared after having studied many sacred scriptural books and which has for its essence the apprehension of the Soul. The end again that creatures obtain depends on their colour, and colour, in its turn, depends upon the character of the Time that sets in, O Daitya.

The stages of existence, O Daitya, through which individual soul must pass are not unlimited. They are fourteen hundreds of thousands in number. In consequence of them individual soul, ascends, stays, and falls down as the case may be.

The end that is acquired by an individual soul of dark colour is very low, for he becomes addicted to acts leading to hell and then has to rot in hell. The learned say that on account of his wickedness, the continuance of an individual is measured by many thousands of Kalpas.

Having passed many hundred thousands of years in that stage, Individual Soul then attains to the colour called Tawny. In that condition he lives in perfect helplessness. At last when his sins are spent his mind, shaking off all attachments, cherishes Renunciation.

When Individual Soul becomes endued with the quality of goodness, he then dispels everything connected with Darkness by the help of his intelligence, and exerts (for acquiring what is for his good). As the outcome of this, Individual Soul attains to the colour called Red. If the quality of goodness, however, be not acquired, Individual Soul then travels in a round of re-births in the world of men having attained to the colour called Blue.

Having attained to that end, and having been afflicted for the duration of one creation by the fetters of his own acts Individual Soul then attains to the colour called Yellow (or becomes a Deity). Existing in that condition for the period of a hundred creations, he then leaves it to return to it once more.

Having acquired the Yellow colour, Individual Soul exists for thousands of Kalpas, sporting as a Deity. Without, however, being emancipated, he has to live in hell, enjoying or enduring the fruits of his acts of past Kalpas and passing through nine and then thousand courses. Know that Individual Soul then becomes freed from the hell as represented heaven. Similarly Individual Soul escapes other births.

Individual Soul sports for many long Kalpas in the world of Devas. Falling thence, he once more becomes a man. He then lives in that condition for the period of a hundred and cight Kalpas. He then attains once more to the a status of a Deity. If while born as a man he falls through Kala, he then sinks into the Dark colour and thus occupies the very lowest of all stages of existence. I shall tell you, now, O foremost of Asuras, how Individual Soul succeeds in bringing about his Liberation.

Desirous of Liberation, Individual Soul relying upon seven hundred kinds of acts every one of which is permeated-by predominance of the quality of goodness, gradually passes through Red and Yellow and at last attains to White. Arrived here, Individual Soul travels through several most adorable regions which have the Eight wellknown regions of felicity beneath them, and all the while follows that pure and effulgent form existence which is Liberation,

Know that the Eight which are identical with the Sixty hundreds, are to those who are highly effulgent, only creations of the mind. The highest, object of acquisition with one who is of White colour, is that condition which is above the three other states of consciousness, viz., Wakefulness and Dream and Dreamless sleep.

As regards that Yogin who cannot renounce the joy that Yoga-power begets, he has to live (in one and the same body) for one hundred Kalpas in auspiciousness and after that in four other regions. Even that is the highest end of one belonging to the sixth colour, and who is Unsuccessful though crowned with Success, and who has gone above all attachments and passions.

That Yogin, again, who deviates from Yoga practices lives in the celestial region for a liundred Kalpas with the unspent residue of his pristine deeds and with the seven (viz., the five senses of knowledge and mind and understanding) purged of all stains on account of their predisposition towards the quality of goodness. After that period, such a person has 10 come to the world of men where he acquires great eminence.

Returning from the world of men, he departs for attaining to new forms of life that run higher and higher in the upwards scale. While engaged in this, he passes through seven regions for seven times, his power being always multiplied on account of his mental concentration and the re-awakening from it.

The Yogin who wishes for final Liberation suppresses by Yoga-knowledge the seven, and continues to live in the world of life, shorn of attachments, and taking those seven for certain means of grief, he renounces them and attains after wards to that state which is Indestructible and Infinite. Some, say that that is the region of Mahadeva; some of Vishnu; some, of Brahiman; some, of Cesha; some, of Nara; some, of the effulgent Intelligence; and some, of the All-pervading.

When universal dissolution sets in, those persons who have succeeded in completely destroying by knowledge their gross and subtle and casual bodies, always enter into Brahma. All their Senses also which have action for their essence and which are not at one with Brahma, merge into the same.

When the time of universal dissolution sets in, those Individual Souls who have acquired the position of Devas and who have an unspent residue of the fruits of acts to enjoy or endure, return to those stages of life in the subsequent Kalpa which had been theirs in the pristine one. This is owing to the likeness of every successive Kalpa to every previous one.

Those again whose acts, at the time of universal dissolution, have been exhausted by enjoyment or endurance of their fruits, descending from heaven, are born among men, in the subsequent Kalpa, for without Knowledge one cannot dissipate his acts in even a hundred Kalpas. All superior Being again, gifted with similar powers and similar forms, revert to their respective destinies at a new creation after a universal dissolution, ascending and descending precisely in the same way as during the creation that is dissolved.

As regards, again, the person who knows Brahma, as long as he continues to enjoy and endure the unspent residue of his deeds of pristine Kalpas, it is said that all creatures and the two pure sciences live in his body. When his Intelligence becomes purified by Yoga, and when he prastises restraint, this perceptible universe appears to him as only his own fivefold senses.

Enquiring with a purified mind, individual soul attains to a high and pure end. Thence he attains to a spot which knows no destruction, and thence attains to eternal Brahma which is so difficult of acquisition.

Thus, O you of great power, I have described to you the greatness of Narayana.

Vritra said I see, these your words are perfectly consonant with the truth. When this is so, I have no grief. Having heard your words, O you of great mental powers, I have become freed from sorrow and sin of every sort.

O illustrious Rishi, O holy one, I see this wheel of Time, endued with great energy, of the most effulgent and Infinite Vishnu, has been set in motion. Eternal is that station from which all sorts of creation originate. That Vishnu is the Supreme Soul. He is the foremost of Beings. In Him this entire universe lives.

Bhishma continued Having said these words, O son of Kunti, Vritra renounced his life-breaths, uniting his soul (with the Supreme Soul), and attained to highest station.

Yudhishthira said Tell me, O grandfather, whether this Janardana (Krishna) is that illustrious and powerful Lord of whom Sanatkumara spoke to Vritra in days of yore.

Bhishma said The Highest Deity, gifted with six attributes is at the Root. Staying there, the Supreme Soul, with his own energy, creates all these various existent things.

Know that this Keshava who knows no decay from His eighth part. Gifted with the greatest Intelligence, it is this Keshava who creates the three worlds with an eighth portion.

Coming immediately after Him who lies at the Bottom, this Keshava who is eternal, changes at the end of each Kalpa, He, however, who lies at the Root and who is gifted with great might and power lies in the waters when universal dissolution sets in Keshava is that Creator of pure Soul who passes through all the eternal words.

Infinite and Eternal as He is, He fills all space and passes through the universe. Freed as He is from all limitations such as the possession of attributes would imply, he allows himself to be invested with ignorance and awakened to Consciousness, Keshava of Supremne Soul creates all things. In Him rests this wonderful universe fully.

Yudhisthira said-O who are conversant with the highest object of knowledge, I think that Vritra behold before hand the excellent end that awaited him. It is for this, O grandfather, that he was happy and did not sucumb to grief.

He who is of White colour, who has taken birth in a pure or stainless family, and who has attained to the rank of a Saddhya, does not, O a sinless one, return. Such person, O grandfather, is freed from both hell and all intermediate stations,

He, however, O king, who has acquired either the Yellow or the Red colour, is seen sometimes to be overwhelmed by darkness and fall among the order of Intermediate creatures.

As regards ourselves, we are greatly afflicted and attached to objects which produce sorrow. Alas, what will be our end? Will it be the Blue or the Dark which is the lowest of all colours.

Bhishma said You are Pandavas! you have been born in a stainless family. You are of rigid vows. Having sported happily in the celestial regions, you shall return to the world of men.

Living happily as long as the creation lasts, all of you at the next new creation will be admitted among the gods, and enjoying all sorts of happiness you will at last be coloured among the Siddhyas! Let no fear be yours. Be you cheerful.